A Good Meal is Equal to Victory

The other day my friend and colleague Jessica Pigza was teaching her class on all things Hand Made (she'll be teaching more of those in the coming months so be sure to check it out...) and she emphasized something I should have brought up with culinary researchers long ago: pamphlet volumes.

In non-library lingo, pamphlet volumes are essentially short pamphlets that have been bound together into a book. The pamphlets range from topic to topic, and sometimes pamphlets bound together have absolutely nothing to do with one another except format, while other times they're bound by subject as well.

What makes these little guys so great is that they often cover subjects that are difficult to find in any free-standing book. Case in point: A Soldier's Simple Cooking Recipes for Cooking in the Trenches and Billets (with vocabulary of French words), published by Harrison and Sons, London and printed sometime between 1914 and 1918.

The preface reads:

Tommy Atkins has the best rations of any soldier in the world, but at the same time Tommy Atkins is the very worst cook in the world. These recipes, however, will help him in his difficulties when he needs to turn his hand to cooking.

The pamphlet provides recipes for trench cooking, including a jam roll and trench cake, and also provides a glossary of French words and pronunciations for those soldiers needing to purchase supplies.

Some examples include:

Chicken...Poulet...Poo, lay

Dining Room...Sale a manger...Sarle ah monjhay

Tongue...Langue deboeuf...Longe der berf

So if you're ever looking for wonderfully quirky cookbooks, look no further than pamphlet volumes (indicated by a p.v. after the call number).


Trench Cake

Crush 4 or 5 Army biscuits into powder.
Add enough water to make a stiff paste, mix in sugar and a tiny pinch of salt with a tablespoonful of butter if available.
Knead it well, but not too heavily.
Bake on a flat hot stone which has been heated in a fire. (If you can, use a beaten egg instead of the water; it will make the cake much more tasty and light.)

Apollo 11 Menu

I've spoken often about the Library's Buttolph restaurant menu collection, but it's worth mentioning that we have menus in other collections as well.

The other day a reader requested mementos from an official state dinner honoring the astronauts of the Apollo 11 voyage. The menu, seating plan, invitation, and some related correspondence from that dinner are part of the Rare Books Division (but not the Buttolph Collection), and I highly doubt I would've come across it had a reader not requested it.

The dinner was held on August 13, 1969 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and was called by the Los Angeles Times, "the dinner party of the decade, perhaps of the century."

According to articles in both the New York and L.A Times, the dinner was one of the most coveted invites in town, with the White House fielding phone calls all week from those asking to be included on the guest list ("[The White House secretaries] have been surprised by the blunt language some of the callers have used.")

Some of the invites included Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes (both turned it down), Jimmy Stewart, Joan Crawford, Fred Astaire, and former President Johnson (also turned it down).

Those that did come were treated to a menu that included the following:

Supreme of Salmon Commodore

Filet of Beef Perigourdine

Artichauds Columbia

Carottes des Indes

Limestone lettuce (all veggies were California grown)

Fromages de Brie, Bel Paese and Roquefort

and for the finale...

Clair de Lune - marzipan, meringue, blackberry sauce and of course - an American flag.

What's also fascinating about this folder of mementos is the correspondence that's attached to it. These items - given to the Library in the fall of 1969 - tracks the request from the New York Public Library to the Century Plaza Hotel, who sent the request to NASA , who passed it along to the Social Secretary of the White House, who honored the Library's request and sent the menu and invite to the Rare Books Division.

And now I'm passing it along to you.


Does anyone know the email address of Bush's social secretary?

Au Revoir, Chez Laurence

A few weeks ago on Friday March 21st, Chez Laurence, a little restaurant on Madison Avenue favored by many librarians, closed its doors for the last time. Even to me, a relative newbie at NYPL, it was a rather upsetting day and to the older librarians who had been going for years, it was heartbreaking. While its prices were in keeping with the times, some of Chez Laurence's menu offerings were remarkably atypical of current Manhattan restaurants. With sandwiches like Mackerel and Grated Carrot or Sardine with Cream Cheese, eating at Chez Laurence felt like going back in time so that at any moment Kay Leiland Strong (Vassar class of '33) might walk in for a cup of coffee.

On its second to last day, I stopped in for breakfast, a take-out breakfast of coffee and a croissant. People were lining up for their morning fix saddened that in a few days they'd be forced to join the masses at Starbucks and Pret a Manger. When I went back that Friday - their last day - and secured the Chez Laurence menu for the Library's menu collection, regulars were on line for pastries stunned that the restaurant wouldn't be open for dinner that night.

With its French decor, Polish waitresses, and tinned fish sandwiches - is there any restaurant in New York that serves a mackerel sandwich? - Chez Laurence will be a greatly missed midtown destination, especially to those of us working at this great New York cultural institution.

And while I don't have the recipe for Chez Laurence's sardine sandwich, I will subject myself to potential ridicule (in case I haven't already...) by posting a family-favorite sardine recipe. Some may call it a spread, others might appreciate the term pâté, but at home we've always just called it Sardine Dip.

Sardine Dip
(courtesy of Claire Federman. All measurements are approximate and to taste)

1 tin of sardines, reserve liquid
Philadelphia cream cheese, about 1-2 tablespoons
French's yellow mustard (or Dijon if you must), 1 to 2 teaspoons
lemon juice, about 1 teaspoon
salt and pepper

Pulse in a food processor or "mini prep". Spread on bread or crackers.

Culinary Class

This Friday, April 4th, I'll be giving a free class in the South Court classrooms of the New York Public Library on how to get started using our materials for culinary research. The Library can be rather intimidating to new users in any subject, but for those who specifically want to research culinary history, cookbooks, or archival material, it can be more so. There are a number of databases where one can search for material and there are quite a few regulations related to rare book and menu research.

I'll be going over our catalog of books (CATNYP), some electronic databases that lend themselves well to culinary history, and the Library's menu collection database. I'll also bring some examples from the collection for your viewing pleasure.


Friday, April 4th
3:15 - 4:15
New York Public Library South Court Classrooms
1st floor (enter on Fifth Avenue between the lions)
42nd and 5th
No registration necessary. Just walk in.